A Westchester County legislative candidates night at the Beczak Environmental Education Center turned chaotic this week when Democrat Kisha D. Skipper was detained following an altercation with Donna Nolan, the mother of her Republican opponent, incumbent Legislator James Nolan. Skipper says she was detained pending an investigation and later released, not arrested, even as conflicting accounts circulated about what exactly happened inside a restroom at the Yonkers venue.
The candidates forum ran from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at 35 Alexander Street and featured federal, state and local office-seekers, according to Black Westchester. An attendee told the outlet that Donna Nolan and another woman approached Skipper, exchanged words, and then followed her into a restroom, where a fight broke out. Mobile phone video reviewed by the outlet shows a commotion at the restroom doorway as other attendees moved in to separate the parties.
Accounts differ sharply on how the confrontation started and who threw the first blow. Per Black Westchester's reporting, the exchange began when Skipper was asked about alleged illicit donations to her campaign during the debate and left for the restroom without answering. James Nolan, for his part, has alleged that Skipper is on video throwing the first punch and said his mother was taken to the hospital afterward, a claim echoed in a report from the New York Post that Donna Nolan was taken away by ambulance. Information about her possible injuries was not immediately available.
Conflicting Accounts of Arrest and Aftermath
What happened after police arrived is also in dispute. One description of the incident circulating online said Skipper was arrested, but Skipper herself has pushed back on that characterization directly. “No, I was not arrested. Yes, I was detained pending an investigation. Of course, I was released,” she said, according to the same outlet's report. As of publication, the Yonkers Police Department had not issued a statement addressing the incident, any arrest, potential charges, or Donna Nolan's condition.
James Nolan posted a statement on Instagram criticizing the violence and questioning his opponent's fitness for office. He said there is no justification for violence and argued that people seeking public office should show judgment and self-control, handling confrontation without physical aggression. He added that the incident, in his view, showed Skipper was not fit to serve in public office.
Campaign-Finance Questions Swirling Before the Scuffle
The confrontation landed the same day Black Westchester published an account from Larnez Kinsey, Skipper's former campaign treasurer, describing her resignation amid questions about the campaign's finance filings. Separately, the Yonkers Ledger reported that Skipper's campaign had not submitted its pre-general election financial report, which was due October 2, as of the paper's review on October 20. Skipper has said she is working with the Board of Elections to update her filings and has blamed the delay on her former treasurer, who resigned in August.
The Ledger's review of campaign finance records shows Nolan's campaign raised $37,821 through late September, spent $49,176, and had $13,430 in cash on hand, with unions contributing $12,550, or about a third of his total haul. Skipper's report covering January through May showed $6,859 in contributions from 45 individuals and one company, according to the same filing review.
A Rematch Years in the Making
Skipper, chair of the Yonkers NAACP, is the Democratic challenger for the District 15 Westchester County Legislature seat, a district covering northern Yonkers that also stretches into Bronxville and Eastchester, per Yonkers Times. The district has roughly 60,000 residents; an estimated 85 percent of its voters live in Yonkers, 10 percent in Eastchester and 5 percent in Bronxville, the Ledger reported. Skipper won the Democratic primary in June with about 53 percent of the vote, upsetting Anthony Nicodemo by a margin of 1,341 votes to 1,182, according to the Amsterdam News.
Nolan, meanwhile, has held the seat since defeating incumbent Ruth Walter in 2021, won reelection in 2023, and ran unopposed in 2025, making this year's race his first contested fight in several cycles. The Westchester County Board of Legislators seats 17 members who each serve two-year terms, making the District 15 contest a race for the board's lone Republican-held seat. Early voting in the election begins Saturday, October 24, with Election Day set for Tuesday, November 3, leaving both campaigns little time to move past the fallout from the forum before ballots are cast.
